Go Juice...

This President has been many things since descending an escalator a decade ago: a national embarrassment, a global punchline, an environmental disaster, a divider of people, a prolific murderer of the English language, not to mention countless human beings.

But he’s also been a floodlight.

He’s fully exposed millions of people who’d kept themselves carefully concealed, many of whom I thought I knew. I can see them now in ways I never could previously. It’s all out in the open.

Intellectually, I always knew that racism was deeply embedded into the fabric of our nation. Still, I’d convinced myself that it had slowly but certainly begun to unravel, that we weren’t as hopelessly bound by it as our ancestors had been.

As a pastor in largely white churches in the South over the past two decades, I told myself the story that the Church, like this nation, was changing. It may have been a combination of privilege, ignorance, and wishful thinking, but I truly thought that we were getting better, that the arc of the moral universe was again bending toward justice

I surely never imagined that so many people I loved, lived with, worshipped alongside, or worked next to were as afflicted with supremacy as they have revealed themselves to be. I never fathomed that so many people claiming to love Jesus would so resent foreigners, so worship America, and so abhor diverse humanity. The people around me were either really good at pretending, or, in my naivety, I was just willing to believe the lie.

I saw the cracks in their facades begin to show when Barack Obama was elected; their carefully coded hate speech, their ever more antagonistic social media posts from fringe sources, their incessant, desperate search for something to be outraged about, their inability to give him any credit or acknowledge his goodness. They grew more entrenched in their positions, more tribal in their tone.

But even then, they kept their prejudices and phobias close to the vest, never really tipping their hand, always dancing around the words without really saying them. The mask was splitting and sliding off, but they would not fully show themselves because it was socially unacceptable (they would call it “politically correct.”)

Then he arrived a decade ago: someone who gave them what they needed to finally abandon the performance completely: permission to be horrible; someone who erased any semblance of decorum, any expectation of decency, any level of accountability. After so many years of pretending, they finally received white Presidential consent to be outwardly racist—and now, in his second coming, the dam of their suppressed bigotry has burst, and they are letting the toxic hatred flow freely.

White pastors now lob it through incendiary sermons into their congregations, white politicians plaster it upon campaign billboards, white police officers send it out in group emails, white teachers wave it in front of their students, white civilians spit it out in viral videos at coffee shops and public parks, white terrorists parade it unmasked through city streets.

And my white friends, family members, and neighbors are rejoicing in this Renaissance of open ugliness—and I never saw it coming, even if I should have.

And this has been the most disorienting, stomach-turning, sickening part of this terrible season in America: the realization that I have lived near, worked alongside, and ministered around people who claimed to believe in Jesus while harboring such corrosive hearts—and that I was oblivious to it all. I am both angry at them and disappointed in myself.

But now, their open contempt for immigrants, their apathy in the face of his corruption, and their callousness toward suffering people all testify to their hearts.

And I suppose that is the small bit of gratitude I have for this malignancy of a movement here; the way it has fully revealed people—and this is an unwelcome but invaluable gift.

I know what I didn’t know before.

I can’t excuse the truth away.

I no longer give them the benefit of a doubt that they have fully removed.

My eyes are clear and open widely, and now I’m responsible for what I do and say in response to who they are.

We all are.

Regardless of what happens in the future or how the political landscape may change or who we have helming our nation, what has been revealed about us as is going to remain, and we’re going to have to deal with the unmasked, unearthed, illuminated hatred that we are this violently afflicted with.

==

Delayed flight. Gate C14. And God himself decided to entertain me by placing two men directly behind me solving America's $39 trillion debt problem between bites of a $22 airport sandwich.

Guy #1 turns to his friend:

"If capitalism is so great, why are we $39 TRILLION in debt?"

Guy #2, without missing a beat:

"Because of socialist programs, obviously."

I closed my laptop. I needed a moment.

Because let's actually look at where the $39 trillion came from. Not feelings. Not talking points. Numbers.

THE IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN WARS: $8 TRILLION

No WMDs found. No democracy built. Two countries left in chaos. That's not socialism. That's bipartisan warmongering with a Lockheed Martin logo on it.

THE 2008 BANK BAILOUT: $700 BILLION (+ $12 TRILLION in Fed support)

Wall Street gambled with your mortgage, crashed the global economy, then got handed a check with YOUR name on it. The banks kept their bonuses. You kept your debt. That's not socialism for the poor — that's socialism for the rich.

THE 2017 TAX CUTS: $1.9 TRILLION added to the debt

Sold as a gift to the middle class. Apple alone saved $47 billion. Your check? Maybe $40 a month. The debt? $1.9 trillion heavier.

THE US HEALTHCARE SYSTEM: $4.5 TRILLION per year

America spends MORE per person than any country on Earth — and gets LESS. A hip replacement in Spain? €6,000. In the US? $40,000. Medical bills are the #1 cause of personal bankruptcy in America. That's not too much socialism. That's the cost of having none.

PENTAGON BUDGET: $886 BILLION in 2024 alone

Larger than the next 10 countries COMBINED. Meanwhile your bridge is crumbling and your kid's school has a GoFundMe for pencils.

Now. Let's talk about socialism "failing."

MEXICO — right next door. Nobody's paying attention.

Claudia Sheinbaum became president in 2024. She has a PhD in climate science. An actual scientist running a country. Not a TV personality. Not a failed businessman. A scientist.

She expanded universal pensions, free internet nationwide, and scholarships for millions of young Mexicans. Foreign investment is flooding in. Nearshoring is making Mexico one of the hottest manufacturing destinations on Earth.

And she's navigating Trump's tariffs and border provocations with more dignity than any US politician has managed in years. She doesn't tweet at 3am.

Must be infuriating for some people.

BRAZIL — and this story needs to be told.

Lula was a factory worker. A union leader. A man who lost a finger in a machine press and turned his pain into a political movement. He was imprisoned on charges later thrown out by Brazil's Supreme Court — many believe to keep him from power.

He came back. Won the election. Returned to the presidency at 77.

Under Lula:

• Bolsa Família restored — lifting millions out of extreme poverty

• Minimum wage raised above inflation for the first time in years

• Amazon deforestation dropped 50% in his first year back

A man who came from nothing, survived prison, and came back to feed the poor and protect the rainforest.

That's not a communist villain. That's a story Hollywood would make a movie about — if he were American and right-wing.

CHINA — and this one will really hurt.

Nominally communist. And yet:

• 45,000 km of high-speed rail. The US has zero.

• 5 million engineers graduated per year. The US graduates 200,000.

• BYD just outsold Tesla worldwide.

• 800 million people lifted out of poverty in 40 years — the greatest anti-poverty achievement in human history.

Someone forgot to tell the second largest economy on Earth that socialism always fails.

While America spent $8 trillion blowing up the Middle East, China was building infrastructure, educating engineers, and buying up the debt America kept creating.

Who's actually winning here?

And yes — Venezuela. We know.

A corrupt petro-dictatorship that printed money, destroyed private institutions, and was strangled by US sanctions. Not a social democracy. Not what any serious economist proposes. Comparing Venezuela to these countries is like comparing a gas station hot dog to a Michelin star restaurant and concluding that food is dangerous.

Here's what those two guys at Gate C14 — and half of Facebook — can't grasp:

America doesn't have too much socialism.

America has socialism for the wrong people.

Subsidies for oil companies that made $200 billion in profit? Socialism.

Bailouts for banks that gambled and lost? Socialism.

Tax breaks for private jets and yachts? Socialism.

Free school lunch for a hungry 7-year-old? Suddenly that's communism.

The $39 trillion wasn't built by teachers, nurses, food stamps, or public libraries.

It was built by wars nobody wanted, tax cuts nobody needed, bailouts for people who needed them least, and a healthcare racket that would make the mafia blush.

But sure. Blame the socialism.

Flight's still delayed. They're still talking.

Next up someone is going to claim that the Narnia series isn't kids books.